


Nothing

by GlitterFairy_21225



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Dave (Umbrella Academy) is Dead, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Heavy Angst, I cannot stress this enough, It’s better than it looks I swear!, I’m officially the worst tagger ever, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus and OFC are JUST FRIENDS, Klave, M/M, Past Drug Use, Protective Ben Hargreeves, Protective Dave Katz, Protective Siblings, Temporary Character Death, Why Did I Write This?, author had to take a nap after completing this, it also gets funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 23:38:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19733977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterFairy_21225/pseuds/GlitterFairy_21225
Summary: Klaus didn't know how long he was staring at the clouds but he didn't feel like checking. He didn't feel like doing anything with the cold, hard painfulness he felt in his chest. No, his heart and soul. His heart and soul were consumed and overflown with an overwhelming feeling of bitterness, anger, sadness, and pain. And Klaus knew that the only person who could possibly make it all go away was gone and every time the thought crossed his mind, it all amplified.Because the only alternative was nothing.XXXKlaus takes a personal day.





	Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I knew that this was gonna get angsty when I came up with the idea, but I was not expecting this to be as angsty as it turned out to be.

Klaus didn't know how long he was staring at the clouds but he didn't feel like checking. He didn't feel like doing anything with the cold, hard painfulness he felt in his chest. No, his heart and soul. His heart and soul were consumed and overflown with an overwhelming feeling of bitterness, anger, sadness, and pain. And Klaus knew that the only person who could possibly make it all go away was gone and every time the thought crossed his mind, it all amplified.

Because the only alternative was nothing.

Because Klaus never did learn how to express negative emotions. Just repress them. Repress, repress, repress. And when the consequences of that came knocking, repress the shame. It was always the only way. Repress until there was absolutely nothing left.

On another day, he'd never dream of wasting a day like this. His father was off adventuring in Europe, and he and his siblings _might_ have convinced Pogo and Mom to give them the week off without telling Papa.

Dave always said that miraculous days off tended to happen on his birthday.

Just like in 'Nam, when Dave's birthday came, and by some miracle, it was also the day the squadron could go to the disco for the day and get drunk. The day they had their first kiss.

If closed his eyes, and tuned out all other sounds, he could almost him. Dave. His bright eyes that always lit up when they landed on Klaus, the feeling of his strong fingers curling in his hair, the sound of Klaus's name on Dave's tongue. And the feeling of Dave's tongue being shoved down his throat.

Those nights they'd spend in crappy hotels, being as silent as possible as they ravished each other, they were everything. That first kiss at the back of the disco, and all of a sudden, everything changed. He was something to somebody. He felt the world, and the skies, and his own heartbeat all in that one kiss. And he wanted to. Klaus wanted to feel something. Something so much better than the blissful nothing he had felt for so long before. Something. Anything. Everything.

Dave.

And then a gun was shot in the frontlines and in an instant, everything was painful again, and the need for the blank, numb nothingness came back.

XXX

After awhile his stomach growled and he robotically considered just starving to death. But then he shook his head. Ben made it very clear he wasn't allowed to die.

Maybe he should just go home and eat there. But by then Ben and Diego will be back and the others will take a lunch break. But Ben would unquestionably notice the bland, fireless, nothing in his eyes and make him talk about feelings and shit. He wondered if the others would too. To be fair, there wouldn't have been any doubt that they wouldn't before their time traveling endeavor, so it was actually a step up.

Klaus vaguely remembered the last words he said before he left. He had approached Luther's open door and casually said, "Hey, I'm going out for a bit, I'll be back soon, just tell the others not to have meltdowns if I'm not at lunch."

His brother looked up from his magazine for an entire four seconds and nodded.

Well, that was framed as a maybe, Klaus figured he should probably just go home. He wondered if he should've asked to hang out with one of his siblings. For the first time since he was nine, he actually thought that his family might be sympathetic to him.

Things were so different now. Luther and Diego no longer fought every time they had a conversation, they _had_ conversations, they included Vanya whenever they could, and the rest of the family was getting used to Ben being around again, at least without getting emotional every time they see him.

It was the first time in a long time that Klaus genuinely felt that his family was a family. Not just Klaus and Ben, with the extremely rare guest appearance of the estranged big bro vigilante with a soft spot. Maybe it wasn't too late to confide his deep, dark thoughts with someone.

Probably not Vanya, Five, and Allison, they were using the Dad-free week to their full advantage. They were having Vanya's first full-blown training day, and for whatever reason, that made Vanya burst with excitement, probably from years of blindly wanting what her superhero siblings had without seeing the rough details. Maybe he could help somehow, though. Yeah, probably not. So.... one of his other brothers.

Ben had really wanted to spend one of his free days at a museum he used to go to when he was dead and Klaus was naked. He, of course, wanted Klaus to go with him, but Klaus declined, making a flippant comment about nerds. And since nobody was quite so willing to let Ben out of any of their sights for too long, Diego insisted on going instead.

Ben would be the only real option. After all, even now Klaus still felt like his Even Number Bros were the only people he could talk to about the hard stuff. Sure, his other siblings were all very proud and shit that he was clean, but he doubts any of them could ever really grasp the unbearableness of withdrawals, and the need of relapse besides the zombie who accompanied him to rehab, and maybe the vigilante who's seen a lot of crazy things working on the streets.

The were essentially the Even Number Boys, a term coined by him when he was high off his kite, and somehow confused the banter as them forming a boy band. He didn't even mention Ben to Diego, so Dee was just more confused than he already was when Klaus started talking about booking Coachella.

But then again, since returning, they had mostly stuck with each other. It caused Luther great annoyance that he had to rearrange mission plans to meet Klaus's need to be at Benny's side.

But, then again, this was Ben's chance to go to that lame museum and interact with the staff and ask questions, and bond with Diego. He was so excited when he left.

After all he's done for him, who was Klaus to ruin that by bringing Ben his issues?

Surely, Ben must've been sick of dealing with all his shit after all those years. He's already dedicated enough time to helping Klaus get clean that could have been used to reconnect with his family. He must've been tired of how dependent Klaus tended to be on him.

Klaus was almost embarrassed by how bad a massive panic attack he had upon realizing that Ben hadn't time traveled with him to Vietnam. It had taken a lot of soothing from Dave (who literally just met him, he was that much of an angel!) to get them to stop. He would have returned to the present, and to Ben, the minute he pulled himself together, but Dave kept distracting him.

A few months in of stalling, and Klaus told himself that the minute he and Dave were 'there' in their blossoming love affair, he'd ask Dave to come back to the present with him. He shouldn't have been so patient. Not when their brothers-in-arms were dropping like flies, except more bloody and more-

Anyway, back to Ben, he had a chance to do his own thing absent of Klaus, and he shouldn't try to ruin that. So the only one left was Luther.

Well, as much as their family was improving, he and Luther still had nothing in common, so that would be too awkward.

Instead, he went to a gas station, and snacked on candy and sandwiches for lunch. Dave's favorite snacks. He sat on a bench outside the shop and intended to pay no mind to the mean-looking blonde girl a few years older than his physical age sitting next to him. She wore headphones and carried a Walkman, and a heavy-looking backpack. She curled in on herself, trying not to draw attention to herself, but her right leg shook with anticipation.

It was clear to an experienced junkie like Klaus that she was very obviously running away. Or maybe her family knew exactly that she was leaving and exactly what would become of her. The thought could be reassuring, but to Klaus, it was just tragic. After all, he was in that position when he was her age. Seventeen, with a stuffed backpack, leaving behind a family that _knew_ where he was going.

He had been so young, yet so convinced that his life had nowhere to go. Just a kid, and he was already so broken, so convinced that he was unloveable, even by his own family, and yet he didn't care because with every smoke and every swallow, he just felt numb to it all.

Of course, soon enough he would be proven wrong, because within two years, Ben attached himself to his shoulder and they became BFFs. But even then, Klaus knew he didn't have much say in the matter.

And then, ten years later, there was Dave. Who somehow proved that a perfectly normal, kindhearted, perfect, beautiful man could love a useless junkie like Klaus. Honestly if it weren't for both Ben and Dave, Klaus would never have even entertained the idea of his family caring about him.

He wondered if he should do something for this girl. Maybe convince her this wasn't the way? The thought almost made Klaus snort. Yeah, he was clean, but he was not in a position to be giving motivational speeches when all he wanted to do at the moment was to crawl in an alley somewhere and roll a joint.

And so he just offered the runaway a remorseful glance. But a look at her cold blue-gray eyes made him pause and take a better look. She had a heart-shaped face and a black lip piercing.

"Liza?" Klaus gasped. The girl, _Liza_ , looked at him curiously.

It was definitely Liza. Of course it was hard to tell without the shaved blue hair or cobra face tattoo, but it was her. Same eyeliner, same nose, same pissed off scowl.

Holy shit, Klaus slept with that girl out of boredom. Well, would sleep with. Then again, he definitely wouldn't screw her in this timeline, so.... would have slept with her?

Liza looked down at him with annoyance that masked confusion. "Uh... yeah. Who's asking.... Oh my God, are you from the Umbrella Academy?" Her inner geek under that coldness showing.

Klaus struggled to come up with the right words to say. He was, to her, a thirteen year old cheesy boy wonder after all. In an expensive blazer and shorts no less. There was no way he could convince her that he knew where her life was headed. That he knew for a fact that in a decade the coldness in her eyes would come with an all too familiar look of self loathing, as she withered away like they all did, piece by piece.

Until finally she stopped showing up at raves and rehabs. Klaus hadn't even realized after a year and when he did, he was as numb to it as he was when all their friends stopped showing up places. They were all junkies, what could he do?

Nothing he could do.

He couldn't stop Liza, he couldn't save Dave, he couldn't even deal with his shit without dragging his brother into it every damn time.

He couldn't do anything. He couldn't help anyone. The thought brought a whole new set of dread and self-hatred to his chest. And with them, his needs intensified.

XXX

The sun was high in the sky, and Klaus was not high, but so angry. Maybe unjustifiably so, but still so angry. It takes over him suddenly, and yet it's been lingering in his chest long before today, and Klaus would be lying if he said he was surprised when it consumed him. Especially when he can't numb the emotions brewing within him.

He was angry. Angry at Liza for throwing away her life like he did. Angry at every government person who got America into that stupid war. Angry at Hazel and Cha Cha for granting him a portal to someone who was crazy enough to actually love useless, pathetic Number Four for what he was, and then yank it away from him. Angry at Dad because he was responsible for something in Vietnam, he had to be. Angry at all his siblings for not knowing what today was, no matter how stupid that was. Angry at God for taking the kindest man in the world away from him. Angry at Dave for not ducking sooner.

And Klaus knew he was being irrational, he just didn't care. He needed to do something, he needed to yell. He needed to destroy. He needed to do something to let out the furious energy he had built up and smushed into a closet. So he grabbed a brick and threw it through a defenseless, closed for the day, 70's record store. Because Dave would've loved 70's music had he lived to 1970.

Any who....When that didn't work, he cartwheeled across town until he collapsed from exhaustion for awhile.

XXX

When he was eight years old, Klaus met the ghost of a nanny who is father had executed after she smothered him with his pillows to stop him from crying a baby. He tried to avoid her. But the strange thing about her was that she would always insist that she did kill him that day, and he just simply jolted back to life.

At the time, Klaus thought she was crazy, but as he got older, he wondered if maybe he did come back from the dead. But he had no way of testing if it were true other then suicide, but he didn't want to commit suicide. And even then, Klaus knew that telling Father about his possible power _was_ suicide. So Klaus kept his mouth zipped and eventually forgot about it.

By the time he was on the streets, he was faced with that question yet again.

He didn't bring it up to Ben, who spent his days worrying about Klaus's wellbeing. He wasn't a racist, but maybe he would if Ben wasn't dead, but since he was, Klaus said nothing. He didn't want to brag.

Klaus wasn't even sure if he could do that intentionally. He didn't know if it was him or God that brought him back to life. For all he knew he hadn't even died at all! Maybe he just got lucky in a life of unluckiness. Though Ben was very adamant that it was death that night at the rave, and Ben was and is always right about everything. Even if Klaus only listened to him half the time.

Of course, even with the real Ben miles away, his voice was forever engraved in his brain, yelling at him not to do this. Still, it was a halfsie, so....

He needed to see Dave. That was the only way to make his awful, no good, very bad feelings go away, without making himself feel nothing.

He was doing this to stay clean. From a certain point of view, they should be proud of him.

Klaus had to be discrete. Home was not an option. He couldn't risk his siblings finding out. He couldn't risk Ben finding out.

There was an indoor pool on a rough side of town. Not a lot of dealers, but as expected, Klaus did have to avert his eyes from a few groups of chainsmokers. His brief reunion with Liza made him remember that dump. As an adult, Klaus had agreed to go with some British twat to an illegal rave there for money. Liza had been there and her then-boyfriend nearly beat some scrawny weirdo to death for bumping into her. Her and Klaus linked arms and sipped their drinks in the background. All the while Ben shook his head even further in the background.

With that, he knew for a fact that while the pool stayed filled after hours, there were no cameras, no security, no chance of the authorities being called. The perfect recipe for Klaus's shenanigans.

After breaking into the pool controls, ensuring it was filled up, and getting rid of that pesky cover, he took a deep breath, and despite being fully dressed, entered the freezing pool. He sunk to the bottom of the deep end, and willingly kept his mouth open, ignoring the panic coursing his body as his lungs were filled with chlorine. It wouldn't even matter in a little bit anyways.

Klaus almost came up a count of fourteen times, but every time he reminded himself of how much he needed to see Dave again. To feel the light and warmth radiating from his love's smile. To remind him that there are better options than just nothing.

Finally, he found himself on a certain grassy trail. He squinted into the sunlight and brought a hand to his eyes to block it. An adult hand.

Klaus realized he was in his twenty nine year old body again, hand tattoos and all. He was in one his old feather coats. He quickly checked his pockets and found a hand mirror he used to carry around. Looking at it for a moment he blinked at his twenty nine year old face. "Hey, gorgeous, been awhile."

The sound of bike pedaling made him quickly put away the mirror as he looked up and saw that damn little girl again. "Shit."

The little girl steamed as her bike came to a stop. She dismounted the bike and promptly picked it up and threw it at him.

"Hey, what the hell!?" Klaus yelled as he fell on his rump, with a bicycle pinned to his chest.

"You know suicide is a sin!" She pouted. "You should be in Hell. But, nooooooo! The precious little doorway wants to see his boyfriend, so now the rules don't matter!"

Klaus just gaped at her for a minute trying to find a response. The bike really hurt. Finally all he could get out was. "What the hell, Man?"

"He's in there." The little girl pointed to farmhouse. "You have an hour before your powers start working themselves to break the Almighty Law! Don't you dare waste it."

Yeah, like Klaus was gonna fall for that. "Who is it this time? You better not be making me talk to my dad again." Klaus said accusingly.

"You think I'm a liar." She seemed annoyed.

"I think you don't like me very much."

"Along with most people! Besides, years of dealing you, after all your intoxicated tomfoolery goes wrong, and you don't even recognize me!" God pouted. She looked genuinely hurt somehow. "Call it a birthday gift." She scoffed and rode her bike into the sunset.

Klaus stood stunned for a moment before calling out to her. "If it's Hitler, I'm throwing myself in front of a train, and you and I are gonna have some words!"

He entered that goddamn cabin, and stopped in his tracks when he saw him. Dave. And in an instant, sweet electricity jolts through his body. No more dread. No more grief. Just Dave, his warm smile, and the sparkle in his eyes consuming Klaus's heart and soul completely.

"Klaus?"

Without thinking, Klaus ran the short the distance into his arms and engulfed the other man's lips with his mouth. Dave kissed back with equal force and sloppy passion.

Klaus forced them to part, and it was one of the hardest tasks he ever had the misfortune of performing.

"Happy birthday."

Their lips crashed together again.

XXX

His head rested on Dave's shoulder as they shared lazy, perfect kisses. That was all they had been doing for what must have been a long time, but it felt too short.

Dave, for all his perfections, ruined it when he said. "You have to go back soon, Baby."

That was not a reality he wanted to face, so Klaus whined. "I don't want to! I wanna stay with you! In this cabin! And a bunch of dead kittens! That would be heaven, wouldn't it? Oh! And we're in Heaven!"

"Klaus," Dave said with big, sad eyes. "You don't belong here. You have to live Baby, for the both of us."

"I don't want to live without you!" He protested, removing himself from Dave's side.

Dave sighed sadly. "I know, Baby. But the world still needs you. Your family needs you. In your life, you're gonna do a lot of great things. But you can't do that as a ghost, Klaus."

"You know, there was never a time when I didn't see ghosts." Klaus snapped. "I was actually the first kid whose powers Dad figured out. At least I was told that, it was actually Vanya, but we didn't know that." He scoffed, but Dave was listening intensely.

"Tell me more, Baby."

Klaus sighed. "From my earliest memories, when I was just a fucking toddler, I could see them, I could see random, bloody corpses walking around, and no one else could see them. No one else could see. And even as a baby I was so afraid of them. But no one else saw, no one knew." His voice cracked at the pain that one sentiment caused him over the years.

"And all throughout my childhood I would crawl into my brothers' beds, and I would hide my tiny face in their chests, and I would try to muffle the voices, but sometimes I just couldn't. Because I was a little kid! And I know now that they were just kids too, they didn't know any better, but I could tell that at some point they stopped wishing the ghosts would go away, and started wishing I would go away. So I did! I did, I went away."

Klaus couldn't help it, and started sobbing. He sobbed for the pain the ghosts caused him as just a child, and he sobbed for the pain his siblings caused him in their childhood ignorance. Dave pressed another kiss to his eyebrows.

"The first time I ever touched anything, I was the age I physically am right now." He said, because why shouldn't he talk about what took all that pain away? Even if no one cared to ask why, which only made the pain worse.

"My dad had been locking me in that fucking crypt for the past five years, but I had finally perfected a full-proof escape plan, and I don't even remember it anymore. Just that it worked, and I was never caught. Ben says I've always been smarter than anyone ever bothered to give me credit for." He snorted in affection for the only brother who always believed in him. "Including me. Though I'm pretty sure he's just being nice. Though, I do remember that I set a timer, and I ran for the city, and that's where I met my first dealer."

He took a deep breath, and gathered courage from Dave's hand stroking through the mop he calls hair.

"The first time I ever took a pill, I felt gross and rotten and nothing." Klaus bit his lip remembering the sensation. "And it was so beautiful. The nothing. They say even the worst of the worst is better than nothing. Bullshit. I spent my entire life being screamed at. By the ghosts and by my family, and for the first time ever things were quiet. Numb. Beautiful. Nothing." He fucking smiled at the memory, which only sent waves of guilt down his stomach, but Dave didn't tell him to snap out it.

He did it himself.

"And I knew what was going to happen, even then. I knew I was giving up my family, my future, any of that precious potential Dad wouldn't shut up about, all because of that little pill. But I didn't care. Because that first pill made me feel nothing. And when everything is nothing, you don't have to care about shit like that. You don't have to care about anything. I already knew what the afterlife holds and it's far from nothing, but that first, little pill made me feel what I knew nothing else would ever do, and all I wanted were for things to be quiet."

It felt good, letting all this shit out. Pretending there was nothing wrong, that there was no pain or bitterness about his past, was honestly tiring.

"I went back to that Mausoleum on time and for the first time in my life, left with dry eyes. Dilated eyes, but dry. And I did it again at the next session, and the next, and the next, until finally they stopped. And after all those years of torture, I was disappointed because I didn't know how I was gonna get my next hit." As inappropriate a time as it was, Klaus laughed at his own self's stupidity.

"You know the quietest place on the Earth for me was a club filled to the brim with music, and screams, and moans. Enough to make a person deaf, thank the Heavens. How could someplace so loud and so meaningless and so distracting be so quiet? Because I know that makes no sense, but everything, even me, felt like nothing, and I loved feeling nothing. Like I was nothing."

And now his head was on Dave's shoulder again.

"When my sister wrote her stupid book, she said that she knew how much it would make us hate her, but that our anger and hate was somehow better than us not feeling anything about her. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!" He spat. "Because when all you have is nothing, you can pretend it doesn't exist! You can't do that with hate! Hate, it's there, and you can accept that it's there, or you can try to change it, but you can't pretend it doesn't exist!" He ranted, Dave desperately tried to calm him by grabbing both his hands, but not even Dave stop him now.

"My family didn't notice I was kidnapped and tortured and I was okay with believing they didn't notice, because if they didn't notice, if they knew nothing, if they were nothing, then maybe, just maybe that was better than if they did know, and I fucked things up with them so much, that they all hate me too much to want to save me."

He suddenly deflated, whimpered, and sobbed again. Dave pressed little kisses onto his curly hair. He was so lucky that could ever, possibly love someone like Klaus. He had to say as much.

"And then there was you, Dave. You were.... you were- For ten months, I wasn't numb. I wasn't nothing, because you were my everything. I was happy. Like, really happy. It wasn't a numb, far away kind of happiness. I was in a war zone where I was one of countless soldiers marching to their deaths, and for the first time, I knew that there was something, anything, better than nothing."

At this conclusion, Dave cradled his face in his strong hands and kissed him harder. His lips probably tasted like salt and snot, but Dave payed no mind as he licked between their mouths and only pressed harder, as though trying to kiss away all the pain in his love's eyes.

Parting was an unbearable pain for Klaus, and yet he didn't stop Dave when started to pull away.

"Baby," Dave started. "That's not- the solution to pain isn't hiding it away and pretending it's not there." He stroked Klaus's cheek with a gentleness only Dave could perform. "You have suffered more than anyone should ever have to suffer. If I could, I would take it all and-and feed it all to a bear, or your Dad. But I can't." They both sighed, wishing he could.

"I would love nothing more than to keep you here, with me, in paradise. But you need to live, and your family needs you to live." Dave kissed his forehead. "I watch you sometimes, with your family. They have their flaws, but they do love you. I know you can be happy with them. I’ve seen the way your eyes light up when you’re with them."

The sentiment should have warmed Klaus's heart, but something was bothering him.

"Wait," He started. "If you were watching me, why didn't you say anything?" 

Dave looked like a deer in headlights. He sighed. "When I died, I realized you must have traveled back to your time, so I started waiting for the day my Klaus came back. I still checked up on you from time to time. But it always felt weird since you were a kid. At one point I started imagining our child, but I realized that if I kept doing that, it would be _extremely_ weird once you were older and became my green-eyed, shiksa closet key.“

Trust to make him laugh after pouring his heart out. Even if it was just a snort.

"Anyway, when I realized that at some point you did become my Klaus, I-I watched you with your brothers and sister," Dave took Klaus's hands in his, "and I realized you could be happy with them. And I needed to give you the room to see how much your siblings do love you. And do want you to be happy."

"What?" Klaus's eyebrows crinkled. He couldn't understand what Dave's logic was. What does his siblings have to do with Klaus's happiness when he could only ever truly be happy with Dave?

"I love you so much Klaus, but I'm not the only person in your life who can make things better." Dave sighed and brought a hand up to stroke his cheek. "It's like.... it's like you think that I'm the only thing that can get rid all of that pain."

"You are!" Klaus said softly.

"No, no I'm not." Dave replied in a hushed voice, soothing him, disarming him. "You've suffered so much, but there isn't one single thing that can get rid of it all. Baby, it can't just be me or nothing. You deserve a real life. Full of things, and people, that make it all better."

"So do you!" Klaus protested as he felt himself getting more and more flustered.

"I know." Dave assured. "I know, and I wish I could have had that. With you. But life, pain, the good and the bad, it's a roll of the dice. Why the most beautiful, most amazing man in the world got stuck in mausoleums and battle fields, who knows! All I can say is that pain and happiness are gambles that are made every single day for every single person, and all you can do is appreciate the happy. And I know losing something that makes you so happy hurts-"

"Like hell." Klaus added, sniffling.

"But I've seen you. With your family. You're happy with them, Babe." Dave smiled, it seemed so genuine. "Never feel guilty because someone else could make you feel happy. To make you not need nothing."

Their lips brushed each other as tears pouring down both their cheeks.

"And for the love of God, do you know how much they're worrying about you right now!" Dave mock scolded, and for whatever reason, they both gave wet laughs.

"What do I need Her love for?" Klaus snarked. "She doesn't even like the majority of the population!"

Dave laughed harder, and pressed another kiss to his cheek. "Seriously, Baby, go back, they were freaking out before your little visit. Hell, you told your family nothing was wrong, and it got you dead in an abandoned pool. You could of just talked to them."

"I didn't need to bother them." Klaus's words were muffled by Dave's neck. "Least of all the one who spent over a decade dealing with my bullshit."

"This is Ben we're talking about?" Dave laughed, the sound music to his ears. "The guy you used to spend hours telling me about? What did you call him, again? Asian Teen Girl George Washington?"

Klaus nodded.

"Baby, you were completely upfront about having an astronaut, a movie star, and a knife enthusiasts for older siblings, and I felt the most threatened by your deceased brother. Take from that what you will." Klaus smiled, and kissed him again.

They pulled away, their foreheads and noses still touching. Dave chuckled lowly. "Honestly, I should be thanking him. You said so yourself, you couldn't stand to sleep with any of the Vietnamese women because they looked so much like your brother."

Klaus smirked at the memory, his mood lightening in the presence of this man's laughter. "Yeah, Ben looks like an Asian girl!"

Dave looked slightly confused. "Yeah, you said that he was one." Klaus looked at him confused, before he came to a sudden realization.

"Oh my God..... Ben is Asian," Klaus said, his mind blown.

"Yeah... you said that." Dave gently reminded, kind of astounded.

"Well, I meant Asian on the inside!" Klaus yelled. "In his heart and brain, not.... Oh my God, was that racist?! I didn’t mean to, we did not see race as kids!”

Dave blinked, but then laughed. The sound was an orchestra to Klaus's ears. He seemed to be trying to find a response. But there was no time to answer, because Klaus could already feel the pull of life tugging at him. They stared into each other's eyes.

“You’re better than this Klaus.” Dave said with moist eyes. “You can do so much more than nothing. You can save the world.”

Their lips touched one last time as he allowed himself to be pulled away.

XXX

Klaus emerged from the pool water with a gasp. He felt like crying. And laughing. The pain was still there. Oh well. He had other issues to deal with.

He ran. He ran to a gas station, and hoped to God she was still there. She was. "Hi!"

"Hello strange umbrella child." She replied with a raised eyebrow. He sat next to her on the bench.

"Don't do it." Klaus blurted. "I mean, I know this is probably really weird for you, and I swear I'm not a creep. Honestly, I don't really know where I'm going with this but-"

Liza stared at him with wide eyes that quickly determined he was a nut, which he was.

He was so unsure of what to do. Every speech that came along with rehab always felt so dorky and forced. Hell, he and a couple buddies, including Liza, once made stole a tape from a center, and made a drinking game for every time it made them want to get a swing.

They were so screwed.

Wait, he was talking to Liza Peters. She was a closet kook.

"Look, I'm one of those lame, dorky kids from the Umbrella Academy, but I'm actually thirty years old, because my brother, Five, is a time traveler. And when my sister, not Allison, Vanya, we thought she was ordinary but our awful father drugged her to get rid of her super awesome powers and wouldn't let her be a superhero. Yeah, she blew up the world, and Five time traveled us back to kids so we could learn to love each other. Kay?"

Liza took a short sip of her hot chocolate. "Kay."

Okay, Sober Liza was still Liza. As cold as she was, she was not one to be cynical. It was important to note that Liza was interested in witchcraft, believed that Klaus and siblings were half-aliens, and unironically payed attention to Bigfoot catching shows during rehab.

"Now as adults, I became a drug addict to cope with my powers and with Dad. And we were friends. Because we shared a dealer."

With that Liza scoffed. "Okay, kid, I think you got the wrong-"

"Your name is Liza Peters, you have a sister named Emma who would visit you-"

"Emily." Liza snapped.

"This morning, you were a cheerleader, hated it, but got caught making out with a stoner chick. Your parents were dicks, and you ran out. You've taken joints from the stoner chick before. You've been sitting around here all day, trying to figure out what you're gonna do now. You run into a dealer eventually, remember the joint, and I can only assume it got rid of the pain, and boom. Junkie."

Liza blinked. "We must have been close friends."

Klaus shrugged and didn't tell her it was her story at every single rehab they met up in.

She was silent for a long time. But Klaus didn't know how to comfort her, but he wanted to.

He didn't really know how to deal with a homophobic family. He knew homophobia from a long decade on the streets and out in the world, but in a home, with family, he never had to experience that.

Even when they were at their most dismissive, it was _never_ Klaus's sexual preferences that made them so tired of him. Hell, as terrible person as his father could be, his orientation was never a part of any speeches of how much of a disappointment he was. So there was that.

"Okay." Liza sighed. "Thank you, I-I'll figure something out. I won't- Thank you."

But should he leave it at that? After all, wasn't that his philosophy when he was her age? The only sibling who ever truly understood him, even now, was the ghost who had nothing better to do. And Klaus was oh so grateful for Ben. Even with his family's newfound movement to 'understand each other', he doubted he would really be a part of that if it weren't for Ben's undying loyalty.

He nodded to himself. He needed to do this, but the only thing he really could do was talk. "I thought for so long that pain was just a thing you overcame or you didn't, and that I just didn’t, so I stopped trying all together." He blurted put, and she looked at him startled. "And that people like my brother, Ben, or like Dave, were like shields. No, not shields... fertilizer. Yeah, fertilizer who couldn’t block it but made things happy, and tried to get rid of the bad shit without pretending it's not there at all. So like, repellent? But it wasn't enough because it was still there."

He realized now that it could have been any one of his siblings, even Luther, joking around with him, and it would have felt better than the drugs.

"But it's not like that at all. There's no one thing to rely on for pain and happiness. The good, the bad, it swirls around us and by some shitty roll of the dice, sometimes the bad is just stronger. And when that happens, it gets really easy to try and feel nothing, because it's better than just, bad." He said chunkily, unsure of where he was going.

Klaus wondered what Liza could have done if she led a better life. He had never known her before the drugs took her over, and he never put much thought into it. Hell, he never bothered imagining what he could've done with his life had things been different.

He remembered meeting her sister a few times in rehab. She reminded him so much of Diego. Emily was civil, but clearly distrusted him and every other friend Liza had, and was always snippy and pissed off with Liza, but there was a certain protectiveness in her eyes that Klaus knew how to identify.

"Oh, nothing. It hurts. When the people we love hurt us. So many times, and they never realize. Sometimes it's worse than the actual bullshit. It hurts so bad that you take in anything that can make the bullshit feel like nonexistent and make things seem so happy, but really it's all just empty. And you feel more and more like you're nothing. But that's not better."

They were just kids. Small, hurting little kids swallowed up and beaten by the world until all that was left was pain or nothing.

"You have to live." Klaus looked at her deeply. He had never seen her cry before. "You have to try."

Liza shuddered. "I don't know if they'll still take me after...."

"I learned a secret." He whispered. "Sometimes people just need the chance to try and fix things."

Klaus walked her to her sister’s house. It was a long trip on foot, but they spent the walk chatting about the adorable kitty litter in a pet store window they passed, their favorite Tiffany songs, and even the girl in Liza's AP Math class with strawberry blonde hair that makes her turn red just talking about it.

Klaus told her about the future, the nice stuff, that she'd look forward to. Like Netflix or Michelle Obama. She point blank called him a liar when he said Bigfoot hasn't been caught yet though.

He watched from across the street as Liza brought her finger just in front of the doorbell, before she turned to look back at him one last time, and pressed it. The door was opened in seconds, and a girl in her twenties immediately threw her arms around her shoulders, before pulling her indoors. Even from the distance they were at, he could see Liza smile before the door closed.

XXX

As he stared at the night sky in contentment, Klaus realized he was in the same park he was in the morning when he stared at those clouds. His mind wandered and danced around, carelessly naming the constellations from memories of Dave listing them off with such passion.

The park bench beneath his back was hard and yet actually felt nice. It was like the good ole days where he would sleep wherever and whenever he wanted.... As much... as he knew it was insane, there were nights back in his comfy, _soft_ bed when Klaus ALMOST missed this.....

"OH THANK GOD!!!!"

And he jumped awake completely panicking. He looked around frantically and before he could figure anything out, he was being pulled into hug by someone- Allison? Wasn't she spending the whole day training Vanya?

Klaus unconsciously leaned into the warm touch, just now noticing how cold he had been, and barely registered that the stars were replaced by the sunrise when his sister pulled back and slapped him in the face.

"Ow!" He rubbed his cheek.

"Where were you!?" Allison demanded, grabbing his arms and shaking him slightly. "We have been worried sick! When you weren't there for lunch we thought 'Okay, that's sad, but he's just eating out, he _told_ Luther this would happen! NO WORRIES!!!!! And then we finished training and the boys were all upset and said you never came home! And then it was nighttime and you still weren't home! We were so scared! Did you relapse?"

Klaus stumbled away from her, her final words slapping him in the face harder than when she actually slapped him in the face.

Her eyes widened and she quickly softened. "Okay, that sounds bad, but..... look we believe in you, but there's still a history. And you just disappeared by yourself! You didn't have anyone with you, and you never came home.... and you fell asleep on a park bench."

He shook his head and gently took her hand. "I get it, Ally. That sounds bad out loud, doesn't it?" And she threw her other arm around him in a hug. And it was nice again for a minute.

Then Allison shoved him away, not roughly, and screamed. "You are in so much trouble! We have been looking for you since one in the morning!"

She dragged him to the bus stop and Rumored the driver when he didn't wanna let Klaus, who was still dripping wet, on. They rode home with her hands locking his arm in a chokehold. The second they through the gates of the mansion, Klaus was immediately tackled into a hug by Ben.

"You're here! You're okay! Never do that again!" Ben pulled away and shook him. "Let me see your eyes."

"What? No!" Klaus tried to shake him off, before but Ben stayed firm.

"Let me study your eyes!" Ben manhandled his face and held Klaus's eyelids open with his fingers against his will. "Okay he's definitely not high. Why are we wet!?"

Klaus looked away. "I went swimming." He mumbled.

"In your clothes?" Ben sounded murderous, which Klaus thought was an overreaction, but whatever.

He dragged him into the house and up the stairs, never once letting his grip soften. Vanya was there as well, asleep on the couch, she seemed sleep-stressed at first, but relaxed a bit when Klaus got closer.

Ben ordered Allison to start contacting their other brothers, and dragged him upstairs, manhandled him into Ben's room, laid a towel for him on a wooden chair, and sat opposite to him. Staring at him.

Normally, Klaus could always talk to Ben about the deep shit when they were alone, but Ben was clearly pissed at him, so Klaus sorta just bit his tongue and waited as their brothers started arriving.

Klaus relayed his story, leaving out pretty much all the Dave parts, and focused more on Liza, because that should buy him brownie points. He left out the part where he told her about the time traveling shit, though. Ben definitely seemed pleased to know that she just might lead an actual life. Five was pissed about the timeline change though.

And then they all started screaming at him for taking a lone wolf adventure. Plus, they all seriously wanted to know why he went swimming fully clothed, but Klaus didn't budge.

Ben crossed his arms. "Look, we're not going to tell Dad. Because we don't want you to die." Klaus winced. "But.... after much discussion, we've put it to a vote, and we've decided to ground you."

Klaus blinked. "What?"

"We'll negotiate the length and details of your grounding after you rest." Ben said, in that annoying concerned but persistent tone.

"Wait- this is- siblings don't ground their siblings! You can't just do that!" He protested.

"And you can't just disappear to have a personal day, _without telling anyone_ , and then not come home even when you set your own curfew, which we also did not agree to." Ben scolded and Klaus wondered if this was what it was like to have a father. "Look, as much as we love Mom and Pogo, if we all want to grow up to be functional adults, we have to look out for each other ourselves."

"Ben...."

"And we have to do that through support and love!"

"We are Hargreeves?" Klaus asked faux-innocently.

"And sometimes love is knowing when to discipline. You need to know that your actions have consequences. We're thirteen again! Pedophiles go to parks, too. We were so scared that you had relapsed and we weren't there for you! Luther cried!" He gestured to their biggest brother, who looked at Ben betrayed and turned beet red.

"He did not!" That was just ridiculous.

"Just like you did not say you were gonna 'be back soon'?" Luther's begrudging voice said. He looked embarrassed.

"He blamed himself. And so did Diego." Ben whispered.

Klaus opened his mouth then closed it again, then changed the subject back. "How do you plan to ground me? If I don't go outside again, fine! Dad'll be back soon and we won't be-"

"We'll negotiate that." Ben crossed his arms in a way that said that there was no getting out of it. Klaus observed the crazed look in his red eyes and realized he had likely been crying himself. Klaus bit his lip. From the minute they had gotten to the past, Klaus had been terrified at the possibility that Ben could ever die a second time again.

In that moment, he realized that he probably wasn't the only person in their duo afraid of losing the other to their adult fate. Even if they'll never really lose each other.

He couldn't stand the thought of Ben dying twice, and Ben couldn't stand the thought of Klaus being lost to drugs a second time. They needed each other. For the longest time they only had each other, and yet for the first time in their lives, they finally, fully had each other. The thought of the other being incomplete for a second time was sickening.

He thought about how it would feel if Ben had done anything like this. Of course, Ben wasn't the addict of the family so it was different, but if he disappeared for a whole day, and didn't return til the next morning, Klaus would certainly be hysterical. And if he found out Ben did half the shit he did today, Oh God, Ben would not be leaving Klaus's sight for a long time.

With that, Klaus huffed and rolled his eyes like an actual teenager. "Whatever." He turned to start walking towards the hallway.

"Where are you going!?" Ben demanded.

"To my room." He replied without stopping. "That is where you typically go when you're grounded."

Ben wouldn't leave well enough alone, though, and kept up with his bitching. "You're covered in chlorine. Take a shower, and use shampoo!"

Klaus huffed but did as he was told. And when he came out, Ben was waiting outside his door, like a pervert. Klaus told him as much.

Ben rolled his eyes.

After much nagging, Klaus finally gave into Ben's demand that he sleep. And like a weirdo, Ben crawled into Klaus's bed. Klaus rolled his eyes, but didn't object. They'd done it a whole lot more than could be considered healthy since returning. Mostly to ensure that the other was still there. Sometimes because Ben forgot how to fall asleep.

"I'm sorry." Klaus whispered. Now that it was just the two of them, he no longer felt afraid to express the remorse and any other dark feelings he had. Apparently Ben agreed.

"What just happened Klaus?"

He rolled over to face away from his brother and sighed. "It's Dave's birthday." He murmured, so quiet he hoped Ben wouldn't hear him, but of course he did.

"What?" Ben said as he sat up and looked down at him. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

Klaus winced. "I don't know. Because I'm stupid and wanted to pretend there was nothing good about this world." For whatever reason, they both let out tiny snorts.

"For the record, I am proud of you. For not doing drugs." Ben admitted. "Just.... just talk to me if you ever need another 'personal day'. And if you find you've already done a stupid thing, call next time? We'd pick you up. For the sake of our sleeping schedules."

He suddenly felt worse. "Did you guys stay awake all night looking for me?"

"It was hard to sleep when your brother could be needing you and you're not there." Ben said quietly. "Now shut up. At least you got like, what? Two hours? Three?"

"Two and a half!" Klaus scoffed as though that meant he won something for some reason.

They settled into a long silence after that.

"I know, I said that the drugs took away all the ugly emotions. But I was wrong." He whispered when he was somewhat sure Ben was asleep. "I was.... afraid, okay? So fucking afraid. Afraid that I was gonna lose the only family I thought I had left."

But then Ben's arms around him tightened as the other boy murmured. "You were never gonna get rid of me that easily, Dingus. And I promise you never will."

Well, he just set any hope they have of not desperately clinging to each other on fire. Dave's stupid, beautiful words replayed in his head. _'And I needed to give you the room to see how much your siblings do love you. And do want you to be happy.'_

“I-I love you." He said quietly. As adults, Klaus believed they were the only ones in their family who would ever admit that to each other, and yet it was still a rarity. It was not the first time he said it, but still. Then again, it was more than nothing.

"I love you too, Idiot."

A little while later, Klaus suddenly remembered something life-changing that he absolutely needed to tell Ben.

"Hey, Ben?"

"Yes, Klaus?"

"Guess what."

"No. Tell me or I tune you out."

"Okay, okay..... You..... are Asian."

"........"

"Ben?"

"OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!"

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, after a parade of monologues, I ended this on a stupid joke I came up with months ago. What?


End file.
